Our mission and approach

The Climate Centre’s mission is to help the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movementand its partners reduce the impacts of climate change and extreme-weather events on vulnerable people.

In recent decades, there has been a sharp increase in weather-related disasters, and climate change is aggravating these risks. There is an urgent need to better manage the rising risk of extreme-weather events through better early-warning, better disaster relief and risk reduction, and climate-smart programmes for health and care, water and sanitation, and food security.

Our approach, working at the intersection of science, policy, and practice, is detailed in our Strategy 2017–20.

A core objective is to make the best global scientific insights operable at the local level. Key elements include support for awareness-raising and capacity-building, especially in developing countries whose people are the most vulnerable to climate change.

Policy needs to be geared toward climate-smart planning, including better dialogues involving a wide range of stakeholders, especially including the most vulnerable.

The Climate Centre focuses primarily on providing guidance and tools to National Societies and their partners, and fostering the exchange of experience, training and technical back-up for Red Cross Red Crescent volunteers, delegates and managers specializing in disaster risk management and health.

In the international arena we facilitate access to climate-related channels of funding and advocate for support to the most vulnerable people in debates on climate policy, especially the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the annual UN climate talks, but also related international discussions on development and humanitarian policy and finance.